unemployment placement. we give you the tools that you need, but your success in this program is up to you. >> i have a job now. this is my space to prepare myself to be better. jas set me up for success. >> why do i do what i do? it is the right thing to do as an american and it is the right thing to do as a soldier. >> i am don lemon. see you back here one hour from now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com many americans want to know if the u.s. is spying on their e-mails and phones. and a cnn exclusive, joint interview with mitt and ann romney on the heart breaking loss of the white house and the grieving that they've been doing ever since.

>> a lot of times people burst into tears when they would see me. >> let a lot of people down, let ourselves down. >> we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." privacy advocates demand full scale investigation into the federal government surveillance of americans' phone records and data they keep on the internet. bombshell reports this week by "the washington post" and "the guardian." britain exposed widespread snooping under programs aimed at preventing terror attacks. several u.s. officials acknowledge intelligence agencies are secretly collecting millions of americans' phone records on a daily basis. the director of national intelligence indirectly confirmed the existence of a program to mine data from some of the world's biggest online companies, including microsoft, apple, google, yahoo! and

facebook. he says only online activities of foreigners, people overseas are being monitored. these revelations reignited the debate over protecting americans' privacy rights while defending the home land at the same time. here is what the president said about all of this on friday. >> if these folks, if the intelligence community then actually wants to listen to a phone call, they've got to go back to a federal judge, just like they would in a criminal investigation. soy want to be very clear. some of the hype we've been hearing in the last day or so, nobody is listening to the content of people's phone calls. this program, by the way, is fully overseen, not just by congress but by the pfizer court. >> joining me, jane harmon,

president of the woodrow wilson center. also joining us, jeffrey rosen, president and ceo of the national constitution center, legal affairs editor for "the new republic." jeffrey, were you reassured by what the president said on these programs? >> i was not reassured. the president's defense was merely don't worry, the content of your phone calls isn't being listened in on. but the phone logs themselves, tell numbers and duration of calls are being monitored, and that frankly surprised senators like senator widen, udall, and simpson brenner that never thought the usa patriot act was supposed to authorize that broad data collection. the president was not reassuring about surveillance of google and other internet data. he said don't worry, it is only foreigners, not american citizens, but there's in fact no assurances that the program

that's supposed to identify foreign content with 51% accuracy is being focused on foreigners for legal troubles there as well. >> jane, you saw that huffington post picture of the president supposedly being morphed from george w. bush to george w. obama. he is getting criticism from the left and right. were you reassured with what you heard sf. >> i certainly was. i spent many years in congress focused on these issues. some things were done wrong, wolf. for example, i was ranking member on the house intelligence committee from 2003 to 2007. from 2003 to 2005, i was briefed on something called the terrorist surveillance program, which was the precursor of this phone program, and i was assured that it complied fully with law. only when the program was declassified by the white house after it leaked to "the new york times" did i learn that the foreign intelligence surveillance act, the law passed

by congress in 1978 to deal with the interception of communications was not being followed and it took two more years for congress to modernize fisa and make certain this program was covered and reviewed by the fisa court and fully briefed to congress. that's one of the problems we're talking about. and the president repeated, i just wanted to finish this, that we are not listening, not, to the content of phone calls. >> so you were reassured by what the president said. >> i was. >> but jeffrey, you're not reassured at all. let me read to you what the director of national intelligence says about all of this, james clapper. information collected under this program is among the most important and valuable foreign intelligence information we collect and is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats. the unauthorized disclosure of information about this important and entirely legal program is

reprehensible and risks important protections for the security of americans. what i hear you saying, jeffrey, is you don't necessarily trust the director of national intelligence or the president for that matter when it comes to these reassurances. >> i don't. trust us is not the model the constitution says is compatible with the fourth amendment. and mr. clapper's statements are inconsistent with those of the president who said he welcomed debate about the balance between privacy and security. of course, it is impossible to have that debate if you attempt to prosecute leakers as this administration has done and deplore the leak itself. i think even if the program was authorized by congress as representative harman suggests, there are questions about its constitutionality and needs to be reviewed not by the fisa court which is a secret court, but by federal courts and ultimately supreme court. >> wolf, can i make a comment on that? the fisa court is a rotation. people on it are federal judges and they rotate in and out of

that court, which was created specially with high skill sets by these judges to review these things, and everyone supports an individualized warrant, which is what the fourth amendment requires, to listen to phone conversations of u.s. persons, americans, who are legal residents in the u.s. the listening is prospective, not retroactive. i think the press reports are really inaccurate and it is unfortunate. the president did clarify a lot of this yesterday. >> you know, the point that "the new york times," jane harman, made in the editorial written before the president came out and made those comments friday, i will read a couple lines, the administration referring to obama administration, this is "the new york times" editorial board, has now lost all credibility on this issue. mr. obama is proving the truism that the executive branch will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it.

now, that's not from the right wing, that's "the new york times," jane harman, those are explosive words. >> they're explosive words, wolf, and they're not accurate. this is a program that fully complies with a law that congress passed in 1978, updated in 2007, has reviewed a number of times since. the section that's relevant here, there's sort of also the patriot act and they overlap, sun sets every three years, so congress has a chance to review it again. let me say one more thing. i don't think the law is perfect, it is hard to have a perfect law in this area. i think it should be reviewed and i think public debate should occur and i have been calling, in fact i have done it on your show, wolf, for a review of all of our post 9/11 framework. i think we should review how we do detensions and interrogations, we should close gitmo and strict framework around use of drones. it is important that americans believe in what we're doing and

that we have a narrative to explain what we're doing to the rest of the world. again, nothing is perfect, but it is very unfortunate when an editorial in a newspaper i read daily is blatantly inaccurate. >> jeffrey, do you believe the chairs of the respective house and senate intelligence committee, jane harman, mike rogers, when they say this procedure, this surveillance saved american lives, stopped terror attacks in the united states? >> of course, i have no basis for evaluating that statement,off the evidence they have access to. i respect them deeply, i am sure they believe it works in good faith. i would just say that even although this program was authorized by law, there is a serious question about whether this law as interpreted by the administration is consistent with the constitution, and i am glad the president is welcoming debate, but we can't have that debate until his administration releases the legal memos it believes justified its rather

adventurous interpretations of the laws. we need those released. >> jane harman, jeffrey rosen, thanks for joining us. when we come back, gloria borger's exclusive interview with mitt and ann romney, open up about life together after the campaign and what it is like, in ann's words, going from 100 miles per hour to zero. huh...anybody? julie! hey...guess what day it is?? ah come on, i know you can hear me. mike mike mike mike mike... what day is it mike? ha ha ha ha ha ha! leslie, guess what today is? it's hump day. whoot whoot! ronny, how happy are folks who save hundreds of dollars switching to geico? i'd say happier than a camel on wednesday. hump day!!! yay!! get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more.

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[ male announcer ] now get 50% off brake pads and shoes at meineke. welcome back. here in "the situation room," mitt and ann romney are opening up about the 2012 election and wrenching loss that took both of them by surprise. cnn's chief political analyst gloria borger met with them in park city, utah, where he hosted a conference for both parties and major republican donors. mitt romney admits there are some things he wishes he had never said, things he wishes he could do over, and things he wants to see his party do differently in the future. >> i have to ask you this first. are you over it? >> yeah, yeah. i mean, ann and i went through an extraordinary process to become president and her first lady, and that didn't happen. we were extraordinarily disappointed, let a lot of

people down, let ourselves down. >> i am over it. it is still hard to watch innings and watch the news and feel like you wish you were there, but you move on. >> you're in the public eye every single day for what, almost two years. >> right. >> how do you go from that. >> to going 100 miles per hour to zero. >> yeah. >> that's what it is like, you're in this bubble of secret service and automobiles and planes and private jets, the 737s and press corp following you, then bang, done. i mean, for anyone it would be a difficult adjustment. mitt's father used to say this, and i loved it, he said politics is the fastest way to go from who's who to who's that. >> especially when you lose. the trappings of power may go away, but post game analysis lives on. >> some people say the problem is the party, some people say the problem with your campaign was the romney campaign and the

candidate. have you sort of done a lot of searching about that, about where that balance was? >> well, i feel pretty good about the fact that the team, the party, the people that worked in the campaign, ann and myself, our sons, we left it all in the field. but lessons learned, clearly we can do a better job as a republican party in registering republicans and getting people out to vote, and as a campaign, and as a campaigner, the next person that's our nominee has to do a better job than i did at connecting with minority voters, getting more support from minority families and with families hoping to make it into the middle class. >> well, ted cruz said the lost of the last election, want to talk about the middle class, minority families, was the 47% remark. >> 47% were with him who believe that they're victims. >> do you look back on that and say that hurt the party? >> oh, i don't know that any

particular remark hurts the party, but in terms of prospects for the election, i would say that was a statement that was of course not a statement if you will, it was taken off the record, but nonetheless and it did not reflect my views, i said it didn't come out the way i wanted it to, surely that didn't help me and other things didn't help me either, a hurricane with a week to go before the election stalled our campaign. >> do you blame chris christie as much as others? >> no. i wish the hurricane hadn't happened, the president was out showing folks he was there, but you don't worry about each little thing and what you could do differently, you look forward. >> there was a post election meeting with a vague promise to keep in touch. >> have you heard from them? >> i haven't heard from the white house since our meeting, and that was a very gracious thing, the president and i had a

very cordial meeting, shared lunch together, and i spoke about presidential legacies. >> and speaking of legacies. >> the president has been dealing with a lot of problems, one of them is the irs controversy. do you believe there was an attempt to hide the irs targeting in the middle of your presidential race? >> i believe the irs individuals conducted a series of acts which were a breach of trust. >> do you think it had to do with hiding it because they were in the middle of a presidential campaign? >> i think they certainly hid the activities of targeting conservative groups, otherwise there would have been an outcry about it. >> would it have changed the outcome of the campaign had you known about it? >> the election was close enough in the outcome with what, 4% difference between the two campaigns, that a number of

things could have changed the outcome. but again, you don't look back and say couldn't we have just changed this, you say where do we go now. the president won, i c congratulate his team on having won, the nature of politics, they won, nice work, and let's get on with it. >> romney picked up the debate right where he left off, soundsing tougher on benghazi than he did during the campaign. >> why, for instance, special forces, told they had the capacity to fly from tripoli to benghazi to provide rescue support, were told to stand down. who told them that, why, where did it come from. why was there no rescue effort? what was the mistake made, who made that, how can we make sure that never happens again. was the white house informed? why not if they were not, why was the president not informed of an attack in our embassy. in the situation room, it is an attack on america. >> romney sits on the sidelines

now, hoping to mentor the next batch of republican presidential hopefuls, and offers some playful advice. >> don't make any mistakes. the funny thing, everyone says be responsib be responsible taken yus. everything is captures by video or handheld cameras and so forth, jokes will get you in trouble. any time you're trying to be funny. >> happened to you. >> yeah. just got to be very, very careful. >> i have to ask you about clint eastwood. that was your idea, right? >> oh, i love clint eastwood. >> it was clint's idea, you mean with the chair? >> yeah, and then the chair. >> clint was the chair. it was my idea to have clint. >> do you regret that? >> no, i love clint. he has his own way of saying things. >> do you regret that? >> no. he's unique. >> so no? >> no. >> no regrets.

>> clinton hurt didn't hurt th campaign. >> there was talk about ted running. >> running as a republican in massachusetts? >> i would say don't do it. >> depends on the circumstance. if one of our boys or our daughters in law finds themself in position to make a real contribution and are needed, school board, mayor, congress, whatever, i'd expect them to stand up and volunteer, if their life was in a setting that allowed that to happen. >> so you're a yes, you're a no. >> a.m. objective length about it, really hard. i think of what the family has to go through. >> coming up, ann romney, one on one with gloria. what she says her husband would be doing differently if he were in the white house right now. when i got the call from adt, my heart starting racing.

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just saw part of gloria borger's interview with mitt and ann romney, now to her conversation with ann. she spoke a lot more about what it was like in her words going from 100 miles per hour to zero at the end of the campaign. >> we knew that our life was more important, our private life, and that this public life that was a unique thing you go through, you go back very quickly to enjoying being together and to enjoying a little bit more slow pace.

it is an adjustment, however. >> in any process, whether a grieving process, there's an adjustment period. it is like a grieving. the most common refrain i heard when i would see people that were sad as well about the outcome of the election as they said that to me, they feel like they're grieving, they said nobody died but i feel like somebody died, and that was their reaction when they would see me, and a lot of times people burst into tears when they would see me, just happened yesterday again. it is happening less and less where people see me and they start to cry, but i think that, you know, it was pretty evenly divided in this country, it was a pretty close race, and there are about half the country that still literally went through a grieving process when we lost.

>> was it harder for you because you thought you were going to win? >> i think so. i think mitt was more balanced about the whole thing. he's always very rational about everything. he was saying how close this election was going to be, this is a difficult race, and he was always saying that. and i said don't worry about it, we're going to win. on the campaign trail, i would see people, they would be so intensely, you know, concerned about the country and everything. i said don't worry, we're going to win. and i felt that, i really, truly felt we were going to win, so i'm glad as i look back i felt that way, because it is the way i had to feel because i believed in it, i believed in mitt, i believed in what we were doing. for me, i had to believe we were going to win as well for it to be okay for me to even go through what we had to go through. >> of course because after 2008 you were the one that said to mitt romney never again, then you changed your mind. >> i did.

i completely -- i just knew we had to do it again, and i will tell you, gloria, i know we never will do it again. it is like okay, that's twice going through this. it is a very difficult thing for families, it is a very difficult thing emotionally to invest yourself at that level, at that depth, and you know, i was just looking at the list of people that are coming to this conference, there's a lot of friends of ours that are going to be here i haven't seen. it was hard for me just to see their names and just say their name because it brought up so much emotion, how committed so many people were, how many people tried so hard, how disappointing it was. we did, we feel like we let people down. >> is that the hardest part? >> it is for right now for me. i think it is frustrating as well to see what's going on in washington. i wish mitt were there. >> why? why is it frustrating to see what's going on? >> i know that mitt is a good

executive. he is, you know, a lot of people used to say that i was a good campaigner. well, i would like to say i would love for the american people to have had the opportunity what a good executive mitt would have been and being the president is an executive position. it is not a campaign position, it is an executive position. it is a person that acts, that brings people together, that has great vision, has great leadership skills, and takes the country in a new direction, and i think he would have done that. >> so what's frustrating in particular? >> i think everyone thinks the economy is improving, but i think under mitt it would have dramatically improved. i think we were in that to make a difference in people's lives. to give that opportunity, that economic opportunity, to make sure america would stay competitive in the world. >> i remember at one point during the end of the campaign when republicans were piling on the campaign, and you said this

is hard. >> stop it. this is hard. you want to try it, get in the ring. >> who were you talking to when you said that? >> you could pick just about anybody at that point, it felt so many times it wasn't just that we were fighting against, you know, a democratic machine that was operating quite well, but that we were fighting even against some of our own fellow republicans or even some of our kmen at a timers that could have been more helpful. it is fine, everyone does what they want to do, but you did feel like you were taking on the world sometimes. >> more of gloria's conversation with ann romney just ahead. when we come back, she talks about the impact of the campaign on her marriage, her health, even why she decided to turn down "dancing with the stars," all coming up. price and we help them find a policy that works for them. huh? also...

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we are back with more of gloria's interview with ann romney, talks about her relationship, what it was like with her husband now that the campaign is over. >> what does the presidential campaign do to a marriage? >> you know, for us, nothing, except to make it better. and it's a blessing that we've had this amazing marriage. i think we have a unique marriage. i think we care for each other very deeply. we were always concerned about each other. i think when i was on the road, not with mitt, i would always be calling, being upset, you're working him too hard, stop, stop. i would be doing the same, calling into my staff, saying stop it, don't make her work so har. we were always very, very worried about each other when we weren't together. >> you had a relapse of ms, for example. >> i had a little bubble step there. >> how are you feeling now? >> i am feeling terrific. i was very, very careful after

the campaign was over for about two months. i was very tired, as you might imagine, and i took two months to really just be quiet and recover and rest. and i was very worried at that time that the adrenaline rush would somehow have some impact on my disease, the lack of the adrenaline rush. >> what's next for you? i know there's a cookbook. >> i have a cookbook. i've had an absolute ball doing that, by the way. i had so much fun doing that, and it comes out in october just before christmas. >> are you cooking again? >> i am cooking again, believe it or not, even though i swore i wouldn't after the last child left, but i am cooking again. mitt is helping a lot. you can't believe how helpful he is in the kitchen, washing dishes, going to the grocery store, he's even doing laundry. >> okay. >> he's been great. >> i have to ask this question. did you really turn down "dancing with the stars." >> isn't that amazing, i love the show so much and i actually turned it down. >> they called you?

>> they called me a couple times. i went, they invited me, i went to the finals last -- the season before, and it was after the campaign, i can't remember what month that would have been, and got to meet a lot of the dancers, got to meet who would have been my partner, and i was very tempted, but i decided not to. >> that's grueling. >> i was a little worried about it, again, coming off the campaign and how intense it would have been and, you know, i told them i do have ms, i mean, can i do this, i'm not sure i would have been able to have done it. and i love the show. i'm sure anyone that watches it at all gets hooked and loves it. >> so no dancing for you with the stars in your future. >> not with the stars, just with my husband. when we come back, a nail biting election night and the moment the romneys began to realize things weren't going their way. more of gloria's joint interview next.

we have been hearing from ann romney. now she and her husband tell gloria borger about election night and when they realized things weren't going their way. >> my team tells me i was still holding out hope at 8:00. i don't think i was, but i think at 6:00 i was really worried. by 8:00, i think we knew it wasn't going well. >> and who kept hope alive? >> me. >> i gather karl rove was calling? >> karl rove was saying don't give up, you know, this isn't right, whatever is happening, our number is in ohio are better

than what they're thinking, so yeah. >> well, i think the reason that karl rove and others, including members of my campaign team, not all but some, felt we were going to win, even as the evening went on, we looked at the numbers and it showed we were winning among independent voters. >> by the margin we should have. >> by a good margin. they said you're not going to lose ohio if we win independent voters in ohio, but we did. and i think they just hadn't counted on the turnout that would come from various minority groups where we had not done as good a job as i wish we would have. >> so when did you know? >> probably you already know until 7:00, 8:00, something like that. exit polls indicated we were struggling in florida and north carolina and we thought we were going to win big in florida and north carolina, so if we were struggling there, that was a pretty good indication. >> did you call each other -- >> i got back about 4:00, 5:00 in the afternoon. we were together. i said exit polls are not good.

ann said don't worry, we're going to win. we will watch and the numbers came in and you don't know immediately because the numbers were close. you don't know until the last counties are counted. >> you're a numbers guy, the analytics of the obama campaign were so stunning and their door knocking and ability to get the electorate outgunned your campaign. did you sit there and go why didn't i know this, why didn't i know that, why didn't i expect this? >> no, because you -- we had, i don't know, four or five months in a general election campaign, i was before that in a primary campaign. i wasn't the nominee. we didn't begin our general election effort until i became the nominee, we began putting people together, doing our get out the vote effort, but the president had four years. one of the advantages of in couple ben see, one of the

reasons it is difficult to replace an incumbent, as incumbent, you don't have a primary, you can raise money during the entire season, use it on the general election, hit your opponent when they come out of their primary and you can build the kind of team. i think he had as many as ten times the number of ground workers, paid staff, that we had, because he could afford them and we couldn't. >> had you written a concession speech? >> no, i had written a very goodwining speech. >> it was great. >> i didn't think we were going to lose, certainly didn't want to write a concession speech. i think around -- i would have to go back and ask other people, i think around 7:30 or 8:00 when it was pretty clear we were not sure we were going to win it was time to begin to put together thoughts for concession speech which we did. >> did you stay up half the night? >> the kids were there, had pizza with the kids, talked about what we were going to be doing next, what each of them was doing, put the grandkids to bed. the next morning we drove home to belmont in massachusetts.

we have a condo there we live in and the refrigerator was bare, so go to the market, get some food, and spoke with the secret service. they said we would like to transition over a week or so, maybe a little longer, you're still very much in the public eye. we said no, we would like to transition faster than that, we don't want the taxpayers to pick up your costs any longer. >> so it is just the two of you. >> just the two of us. >> who took it the hardest? >> i don't think -- i think initially maybe i did. i think initially i was more upset. >> you know, the next day we went to the campaign office and the workers were there, all of the campaign workers gathered and i got on the stand and spoke to them. they worked really hard for a long, long, long time. >> there were a lot of tears. >> it is very hard. it's a real heart wrenching experience to say we just didn't get the job done.

but i also said to them look, life's currency is the friendships you make, and we have made friendships in this campaign we will never forget. we were in the foxhole together. and this is something we won't lose. and we are all richer from the experience by virtue of those friendships we made. >> we all saw pictures of you at thanksgiving in california, the governor and the boys at disneyland, and sort of that was the public face of the romneys after the election, and so the question is what's going on behind that, behind that public view. >> obviously there's a lot of healing has to happen when anything as traumatic as that that you go through. but i also can be very quickly reminded of how traumatic life experiences are for everyone in this country. people, youknow, we lost an election. put it in perspective. people lost a husband, a wife, a

child, lost someone in battle. there were so many things that people have to deal with in this life, and you know, yes, that was hard, but i think we can put it in perspective very quickly and say aren't we blessed, aren't we blessed to live in this country. i think it would have been a better one had mitt won, but aren't we blessed, this is an amazing country, amazing people. >> love the experience. it was hard work. i said it was like a roller coaster, there are ups and downs, but you still pay to get on the roller coaster. it is a real thrill and experience that we will never forget, and frankly i'd do it again -- >> you would? >> look. >> again? >> i would do it again, but it is not my time. >> i'll go with that. >> i would love to do it again and win, but it is not my time. i had my chance. i expressed my views. i didn't win. it is time for someone else now to get in there and give it

their best shot. i am optimistic a republican will win in 2016, but i am not going to be that guy. there will be somebody else that takes that mantle, and more power to them. i hope i can help them in some way. up next, mitt romney tells us what he misses and doesn't miss about the presidential campaign. [ larry ] you know throughout history,

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when gloria borg borger spoke with mitt romney. he talked about the lessons he learned in 2012 and about moving on to what comes next. >> how do you get back to living a life without that single minded intensity and focus that

you have to have during a campaign every single minute of every single day? >> i'd say it's almost the opposite. it's easy to live life with family, with house hold chores you have with the privacy you enjoy. what's difficult is going into a campaign and becoming sbrodly focused day after day speaking to large groups of people, getting to know individuals one oun one, dealing with the media, that's what's difficult. >> deal with your mistakes. >> dealing with your mistakes. that's what's difficult. when it's over, it's like, back to real life. isn't this great? it's not hard going back. it's hard going into the campaign. it's a new experience sean a thrill but at the same time it's a real challenge. >> don't you spend a lot of time kicking yourself after the 47% remark which was a real problem, didn't you kick yourself.

>> i was very upset. there were a number of times i said things that didn't come out right. one of the interests things about campaigns today is everything you say is being recorded. now and then things don't come out exactly the way you want them to come out. they don't sound the way you thought they sounded. now with the good opposition campaign, they grab it, blow it up, maybe they take it out op context, maybe they don't. it obviously is paraded in a way that you hadn't intended but that's the nature of the politics today. you have to get over it and live with it. >> you miss it? >> i tell you what i do miss. i miss the associations that we had, the staff that i loved, the secret service agents, loved them. having those -- it was the personal feelings that i had with that. it was exciting, it was a lot of fun, a lot of days were a lot of

fun. so yes, i do miss the personal associations that we had. >> do you miss it, the limelight? >> not the limelight, no, not the limelight and the constant scrutiny and the microscope seeing is your hair slightly out of alignment, what kind of shirt do you have on today. you don't enjoy that. but you do miss the friendships. the friendships we've made during that campaign and the one before are lifelong friendships and i wish i could spend more time with those people. >> up next gloria joins me in "the situation room." what struck her most seven months after their failed bid for the white house. engineer, g walmart conserve energy. even today, when our store does well, i earn quarterly bonuses. when

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>> and our chief political analyst gloria borger is here. a lot of folks are saying why have they decided to come out and do the interviews at this point. does romney look for example for some political come back down the road. >> i don't think he's looking for a political comeback. but i do think he's looking for a job, a role. it can be informal in moving the republican party forward. i think he sees himself as a mentor to some of the folks coming up the ladder at this conference he hosted in park city, utah, you had chris christie, rand paul, paul ryan. and so i think he wants to figure out a way to come up with ideas, if you will, that would help the republican party move. but on the other hand, people look at him and they say, okay, mitt romney, your campaign didn't go so well, you're somebody who had trouble with your message but there's sort of

a tug of war. why should we listen to you. he wants to tell people i'm not done yet. >> he even invited david axelrod to come out to event in park city. >> he did. since the session is off the record we don't be able to know what david axelrod say. he came there to talk about his charity to cure epilepsy but i guarantee you politics is going to come up. this is a way for romney to dip his toe in the water and sort of get over it. >> to mo on. >> i think from the interviews as you saw, it hasn't been really easy for them. people who lose presidential races are people who have been in the limelight every day for two years and then suddenly they lose the trappings, they lose the secret service, they lose that single thing they need that they've been pushing them forward for two years, one goal, they lose it in a day and then they kind of look up and say what's next.

it's very difficult for them people. >> people react differently. john kerry had the senate to fall back on. john mccain had the senator to fall back on. with mitt romney he has no senate necessarily to fall back on. >> i've spoken with john carry and john mccain a while book. it wasn't an easy transition for them you go back to the senate and you're one of 100. the flip side, living under the microscope isn't what it's cracked up to be. it could be quite difficult. >> the ann romney usually more candid in these kinds of conversations than her husband? >> she is a more can did person. she's not a politician. he's very defensive of her husband, always has been. there was a struggle during the campaign, wolf, let romney be romney, talk more about his more mon faith, talk more about wh

who he is. i have a sense she believes that never happened as much as she wanted it to happen, that he never broke through, as she put it. part of that may have been the campaign and part of that may have been romney himself. he self-says sores so much that he comes across as kind of stiff. what you saw in the interviews was a little bit more relacked romney, complaining a touch about what it was like to be on in the campaign. but a little bit more relaxed but still mitt romney is mitt romney. i thought both of them looked great. >> yeah. >> these obviously past seven months they've had a chance to unwind. he looks fabulous. she's rost some weight. he also looks very handsome. i think they're enjoying themselves. >> they are. i think they miss part of it and i think romney does kick himselfant about the mistakes and the what ifs.

>> excellent interview as usual. thanks for doing that. remember you can always follow what's going on here in "the situation room" on twitter, you can tweet me@wolf blitzer. you can like us on facebook. i'm wolf blitzer in "the situation room." the news can'ts next on cnn. oan. . . cnn. uan'ts next on cnn. esan'ts next on cnn. n'ts next on cnn. 'ts next on cnn. ts next on cnn. s next on cnn. . oim don lemon. we're going to begin with new information on the deadly shooting in california. they've identified the suspect. they're not releasing his name yet because his next of kin are believed to be out f the country. we also have new surveillance pictures of a suspect seen entering the library on the campus of the college. the suspect would have been 24 years old today. santa monica's pe